Southern Names Sandy Pugh as Women's Head Basketball Coach
June 30, 2000
BATON ROUGE, LA--After comprising a 76-19 record at Meridian Community College including two junior college national championship tournament appearances, Sandy Pugh was introduced Monday as Southern University's head women's basketball coach.
Her appointment is contingent upon approval by the Southern University Board of Supervisors.
Pugh becomes the fourth head coach in the 25-year history of the school's women basketball program. She was hired three months after seven-year veteran Herman Hartman ended his career with a 105-109 record.
Pugh inherits a Lady Jaguar squad who showed promise in spurts of the 1999-2000 season, including a semifinal appearance in the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship tournament and a sixth-place regular season finish. Returning forwards Katrina Dotson and Tremesha Colbert were voted to the all-SWAC team and were amongst the conference top leading scorers.
Pugh has a background as a great recruiter, dating back to her days at Northwestern State University, where as a graduate assistant under Demons coach James Smith, she signed the junior college Player of the Year, Pam Hudson.
As a shooting guard, Pugh lettered under Lady Demon’s head coach Pat Pierson, from 1983-1987. Pugh helped lead NSU to four straight Southland Conference titles, an appearance in the Women's National Invitational Tournament and the 1986 conference Most Valuable Player award, a first in the schools history. Pugh was also selected to the Academic all-American team in 1985 and 1986. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Education in May of 1987.
Before taking over the helm at Meridian College, Pugh served one year as recruiting coordinator and assistant coach at the University of Central Florida, helping the school appear in their first ever NCAA national tournament. She helped the University of Louisiana at Monroe to a fourth seed in the NCAA tourney while serving in the same capacity at the North Louisiana school from 1990 to 1995.
Pugh worked on the NSU coaching staff as a graduate assistant. As a part of Smith’s staff, Pugh helped the Lady Demons earn their first invitation to the national tournament.
“Sandy was selected to coach at Meridian because she is an outstanding person. I’m sure Southern chose her because of the type of person she is and because of what she accomplished as a coach,” MCC Director of Athletics Michele Smith said. “She’s an extremely hard working person. She follows up on her athletes academics and she’s one of the most knowledgeable coaches of the game.”
“Her work ethic is second to none, she instills that ethic in her players and the success that we have had at Meridian is an example of that,” Smith said. “We are definitely going to miss her but we’re wishing her well. Southern is getting a wonderful person in Sandy. She’s not just a colleague and excellent coach, she’s a friend.”
